


life as a series of moments

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [130]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: Seven ficlets that were prompt responses or impulse-scribbles or what have you, ranging from almost right after the end of YBEB-proper through to the "present"





	life as a series of moments

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it.
> 
> Many details of Christopher Lee's actual wartime service are still classified, and we admittedly have only very dull declassified details and his own Dark Hints about things, but frankly I still like this idea so. XD

1\. 

Steve watches the first couple of Elizabeth's firearms lessons because he gets the vague feeling it makes everyone slightly more comfortable. 

Bucky _likes_ Elizabeth. That's why this is happening, after all. Steve was actually pretty impressed, because Bucky both noticed what it is that's winding him up, and came up with an idea of what to do about it, without Steve having a chance to say anything.

And it probably helps, in a weird way, that Bucky's got a gut-deep sense that there's no such thing as absolute safety - there's no way he or anyone else can make anyone _totally_ safe. So he can make the compromise that this way, at least, she'll be equipped to stop the most likely threats or at least stall them long enough for people who were better at violence to show up and handle things. 

The two and a half seconds it takes for Bruce to let the Hulk out is still enough time for someone fast to shoot her, so making sure she's able to handle guns, and also handle things like ducking them and taking them away and all the rest of it, is likely to make a big difference. Enough of a difference to ease everything back down a bit. _Safer_ is good; _safer_ is enough. Absolute safety is impossible, but _improved_ safety is something to aim for. 

Liking Elizabeth doesn't make having to handle interacting with people easier, though. Just maybe makes it worth the effort. So Steve sticks around, those first couple times, just so he can fill in small talk and field that kind of stuff. 

And he has to suppress laughter, to start with, at just _how_ she looks at the Beretta that Bucky puts on the small table they're sitting at off one of the practice ranges in the Tower. 

(There are three. Steve thinks Tony's maybe still got some paranoia issues.) 

How suspicious. How untrusting. How almost comically resentful. How much it seems like she might actually be expecting it to bite her. 

"There's no bullets in it," Bucky says, halfway between wry and solemn, and Elizabeth wrinkles up her nose. 

"I'm sorry I'm going to make faces," she says. "It's not even rational, it's just a long-standing . . . .it's a thing. But it doesn't mean I'm not listening! Or that I'm resistant. Or anything like that." She pauses and adds, "I am just saying. That if my father ever finds out about this. Even though I'm not talking to him? We have to find some way to make him hate it." 

"I think that'll be pretty easy," Bucky replies, while Steve starts laughing. 

 

Steve only watches the first couple, though, because the last thing he wants Bucky to think is that Steve thinks he needs keeping an eye on. That's still something he is not interested in even remotely implying. 

It's harder to stop than he expects, although not because he's nervous. Actually it goes really well, as far as Steve can see - and he does try to look carefully. Thoughtfully. With his whole brain working. 

That's harder than he expects, though. Because it only takes about halfway through that first two hours before Bucky's relaxed enough that he's almost - 

It's not exactly flirting, but Steve realizes he's found yet another thing that he doesn't have a good word for. It has some of the same shapes as flirting, but that's like saying that a goose has the same kind of shape as a duck: they're still two solidly different things. 

It's different because Bucky's instincts have done the same thing Steve's have, with Elizabeth: she's like a younger aunt, beautiful and lovely and someone you want to be around, but still very definitely one of your parents' sisters, over there in a very different box, and not someone you could actually flirt with any more than you could flirt with your grandmother. 

But it plays through some of the same steps, the same motions: you're still saying some of the same things, which are all about how you enjoy the other person's company, think they're a pretty great person, and want them to enjoy being around you. 

And so it's something Bucky was always just as good at as he was at real flirting, and he picked up extra moms and aunties the same way he could pick up girls to go to the dance with and it's something Steve's used to thinking of being part of Bucky being _happy_. 

If Steve's really honest, he could sit and watch that for hours. And on top of that, Bucky's a good teacher, always has been a good teacher, and it's nice to watch him do something he's good at. Watch him do something he at least kind of knows - somewhere in his mind, even if he can't look at it head on - he's succeeding at. 

Steve thinks that's probably kind of important. Knows it, actually. A lot of the psychology books talk about it. He wishes he thought it was safe to point it out, but he's pretty sure that right now having to be consciously aware that's going on would make Bucky's mind rip it apart in fear he's doing something _bad_. 

So Steve keeps his mouth shut, and also makes himself _stop_ finding excuses to tag along after the first couple times. Sticks to times when it really is plausible and reasonable that he'd lurk and watch, without finding new excuses. 

 

2\. 

One thing he hates about anything getting better is the way you realize how everything used to be worse than you thought. 

And you have to remind yourself of that and pay attention to it, or you could trick yourself into thinking everything's only ever getting worse. It's so fucking _irritating_. Especially when there's something, some big disconnect, that could fool you even more. 

Like about three weeks of relief after, say, you get rid of a major fucking source of pain, nerve stress, weight and all that shit. So you don't immediately remember what things before that feel like, and then when the little bit of fucking grace time wears out it feels like you're falling into a hole way deeper than it actually is. 

It takes Bucky about a week into that crash to realize it, which at least does happen _before_ he actually flat fucking runs through his capacity to pretend to Steve he's not crashing as badly as he is. Which is something, maybe. It might suck a lot more if he'd had to give that up first, before he realized this little fucking mind-trick. 

He's not even sure what makes it click. What makes it easy to figure out. Maybe it's because he has to start into a new flat of the Powerade, because he realizes he hasn't eaten or drunk anything since the day before and that's not a good plan. That starting the new flat means remembering having to put it away, and remembering having to put it away reminds him that when he put this flat away he'd . . .forgotten how putting stuff away worked. 

At first. 

Had left it stacked on the counter, underneath the one before, because that's all you needed to do, to put things away. And because he'd forgotten that he was here, and now (then, there) in Steve's condo, at home, in Brooklyn, and not . . .anywhere else. 

Forgotten it while standing there, forgotten what it meant while standing there. And hadn't even noticed. Didn't end up bothered by it any more than he was always bothered by everything. 

Because he used to do that. All the time. Forget where he was because in a way he _wasn't_ anywhere. Ever. Not completely. Half-dissociated all the time, at least. Only noticed when it turned into a _problem_ , when it meant he did something wrong, or something that stood out, and the reactions to it jarred him back, and . . .stuff. 

Staring at the flat, the torn plastic wrapping and the plastic bottle he's taken out, Bucky realizes he doesn't . . .really do that. Not as much. Not all the time. He wouldn't forget how to put something away, now. 

Might decide he didn't care enough to try and make himself think about where it'll fit because that's still somehow hard intellectual fucking work. But he wouldn't . . . .forget _how_.

And realizing that sort of leads to realizing that maybe what he remembers as being better wasn't. It was just he didn't know how fucked up he was yet. 

As realizations go he hates this one. A lot. 

 

It's not comforting at all at first. Because this has still been a _shitty_ day and a half and he can tell it's going to get worse before it gets better if it gets better at all. And with that it's not comforting to realize you used to be way worse and you were just too fucking stupid and messed up to know it. 

Making himself take a shower is probably _not_ the smartest way to handle it. But that's where Steve finds him. The water's even too cold, because he's a fucking idiot. 

Steve turns it up when he steps in. Bucky can't actually force himself to _say_ anything to the question, or even register what the actual question Steve asks _is_ , but he can at least reach up to catch the questioning hand Steve brushes over his shoulder. Make himself _actually give some kind of fucking sign_ that yeah, that's okay. That's fine. 

That he wants that, even. Wants Steve to touch him. Doesn't fucking deserve it, but wants it. 

Steve works one arm around his waist and the other across his shoulders, and the water's gone a lot warmer now. Maybe counts as good, instead of him being fucking stupid. 

Even after a few minutes realizing how bad shit used to be still isn't comforting. But after a those few minutes with Steve's skin against his and Steve's breath in his ear, maybe at least he can hold onto the fact that it's not actually all getting worse. 

 

3.

"Wait," comes Steve's voice from the couch, "Duke became an _actor_?" 

Clint looks up from the pool table, pausing in the process of reminding Tony he's not the only one who could skin every player in any given bar or pool hall for all they were worth. 

Steve's sitting on the floor in front of one of the couches, staring at his phone with a look of consternation and surprise. He'd pulled it around to face the pool table, and James is sitting _on_ the couch doing something on the tablet. 

Clint'll give him this: James has managed to not actually look like he's trying to wedge himself into the corner made by the couch's back and arm, and sitting cross-legged the way he is almost looks normal and not like he's making absolutely sure that even if someone walks by, or sits on the couch, they won't touch him. 

". . . yeah?" James says, giving Steve an amused look. "You miss that?" 

"Duke," Steve says. "An _actor_." 

"Do the rest of us get to be part of this conversation?" Tony asks, a little acidic, spreading his arms a little even if holding the pool cue makes the gesture a little awkward. 

Clint straightens up, since the game is obviously on pause for at least a minute or two. He may be playing to kick Tony's ass, and fully intends to, but he's not gonna pretend that doing so requires anything less than his full concentration, so he's not going to be stupid enough to try to shoot while this little play is going on. 

"Steve just found out Christopher Lee's an actor," James replies, in the kind of deadpan that comes with giving Steve shit - except then he pauses and says, " - hey you watched those Ring-adventure movies, how did you not know that?" 

"What?" Steve says, turning to look up at him. 

Nat has preemptively banned Clint from making any kinds of arch comments about Steve's habit of sitting on the floor in front of James when James is on couches or armchairs, and what _some_ people might take from it. He'd looked offended that she said it, and she'd looked unimpressed right back and added, _I'm serious, Barton. Don't fucking complicate shit that doesn't need complicating._

He's still a little bit hurt she felt the need to say it, as he's not an idiot and he's not actually inclined to add any caltrops to whatever paths Steve's negotiating to keep himself from going completely bug-fuck over the part where he owns his best friend (if you want to be blunt about it) whether he wants to or not, even if it's pointing out that all his unspoken signals kind of tend to send _the opposite message_. 

That's got nothing to do with why Steve's doing it, anyway. Steve's body-language when it comes to James is just about as simple as you can get, and comes down to making it really clear that the world can only get to his best friend through him. Literally. 

It just privately amuses Clint every time it happens. 

"The evil wizard in the white dress, Steve," James says, shaking his head and sitting back. 

"Wait, really?" Steve says, and looks back at his phone, scrolling down and obviously going to a different page somewhere and staring at it. "You never said anything?" 

"Yeah, the first time we watched those things I still didn't remember where we went to school, Steve," James says, patiently. "And then I kinda assumed you noticed. How did you not notice?" 

Tony clears his throat very, very ostentatiously, and when everyone looks at him says, "Seriously, what the hell, you guys." 

"Lee was part of Intelligence during the War," James says, as Steve keeps frowning at his phone and scrolling down and back up. "Seems the idea he went into Hollywood's giving Steve a hard time." 

"Okay, _be fair_ ," Steve objects, a bit heatedly, "and also you're _not_ allowed to twist this up later because you know exactly what I mean but Duke was the only other guy we worked with that Dugan would admit scared him as much as you did." 

"With a knife in his hand, yeah, but that still doesn't mean he can't act, Steve," James says, looking amused. 

"I think I hate you," Tony announces in the casual way that means he's envious as hell. At Natasha's burst of laughter and Clint's quizzical look, he explains, "I have seen every single goddamn movie that man was in. I hate both of you. I need a beer. Barton hit the goddamn ball." 

Steve scrolls up and down on his phone again and says, "How did I not recognize his _voice_?" 

"You're a terrible spy, Steve," Tasha says, in a tone of fond despair.

 

4\. 

He doesn't sleep as well at the Tower most of the time, and they both know it. It's a kind of unspoken knowledge, they don't talk about it or anything, but Bucky knows Steve takes it into account around accepting invitations and that kind of shit, and knows that telling him not to won't make him stop. 

On the other hand the idea of trying to sleep anywhere else - even visiting at Wilson's overnight, something like that - makes his shoulders kind of metaphorically try to crawl up his own neck, so Bucky figures the thing is it's a miracle there is a second choice on that one, not so much that it's definitely only a second choice. 

Given that not that long ago he could still only sleep in short chunks in the closet with his back wedged into the fucking corner, period, it's . . . not that bad. 

The one flip-side is, he supposes, that he doesn't bother getting up much at the Tower even if he's not asleep - he figures even Steve's sleeping instincts are a little less comfortable here, because he can barely get two steps out of bed without waking Steve up, instead of the ten minutes or so it can take at home. 

So like right now, as he gives up on trying to go back to sleep for a little while, Bucky just rolls over and lets Steve still-sleeping shift until he's settled beside Bucky's shoulder, lower arm resting along Bucky's upper left arm and hand resting on Bucky's left shoulder. 

The idiot kitten complains about being moved, and then settles against the pillow in the curve of Bucky's neck in a little knot after Bucky reaches over to grab the tablet with his right fingertips, pull it over so he can get ahold of it, find the fucking book he'd been reading.

 

5\. 

**stark** [11:12] Barnes.  
**stark** [11:13] barnes.  
**stark** [11:14] JAMES.  
**stark** [11:15] please make your boyfriend come home.  
**stark** [11:15] seriously. please. for the love of god.  
**me** : [11:16] What's your problem?  
**stark** : [11:17] my problem is you need to make Steve go home and stop lecturing me.  
**stark** : [11:17] before I resort to jumping off this building  
**me** : [11:18] You can deploy the suit before you hit the ground.  
**stark** : [11:20] yeah but it would be really rude. I'm trying not to be rude.  
**stark** : [11:20] just let that one pass the point is:  
**stark** : [11:20] for the love of god.  
**me** : [11:21] Why?  
**stark** : [11:22] he won't shut up about batman.  
**stark** : [11:23] why the fuck does he know this much about batman  
**stark** : [11:23] why does he care this much about batman  
**stark** : [11:24] I have learned more about batman in the last ten minutes than I have ever known or cared about before  
**stark** : [11:25] I WILL HAVE TO REMEMBER THIS. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT. I DON'T GET TO DECIDE ABOUT THAT.  
**stark** : [11:26] FOREVER. I WILL JUST KNOW ABOUT IT FOREVER  
**stark** : [11:27] I MADE AN OFF-HAND REMARK ABOUT BATMAN AND BROODING AND HE WON'T SHUT UP  
**stark** : [11:27] HE CAN SEE ME TYPING THIS AND HE WON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT HOW BATMAN USED TO BE SO MUCH BETTER  
**stark** : [11:28] AND HOW MODERN BATMAN IS STUPID AND A BETRAYAL OF THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT.  
**me** : [11:29] He's right. This conflicted angst-filled stuff is bullshit. Batman used to stand for something.  
**stark** : [11:29] . . . Okay well played but seriously save me and make him go away.  
**stark** : [11:30] I'm begging you

 

6\. 

He's vaguely aware that he has - technically - living family. 

Actually it's pretty much fucking guaranteed he has a stupidly huge number of living family. His mother had five brothers and sisters and his father had eight, and all of them got married and every last one of them had litters of kids. His parents had been really unusual in having only him, just the one kid, and everyone knew why. 

Knew it was because his mom and dad really could not stand each other, and thankfully his dad wasn't the kind of bastard who went in for what nobody in those days called rape yet, not even as a way of showing how pissed off he was. 

As far as Bucky can remember his dad never hit his mom or threw her around, either, even when they were screaming at each other. Broke dishes and furniture a few times, yeah, but so did she and frankly, of the two of them, if it came down to one or the other of them Bucky would have put all his money on his mother knifing his father, even if she had to do it with broken pottery. 

It didn't ever come down to that. They just went at each other with words, names and accusations and volume, and occasionally a broken plate or chair to accent a point. By the time his voice broke, they'd actually mostly even stopped that, and settled into really nasty acid comments and implications on the occasions they couldn't avoid one another. 

Like Mass, and big family gatherings, and stuff like that. 

The point being that first, some of his first cousins are probably still alive - well, some of'em are almost definitely still alive, seeing as one or two of them had just been born at the point of his parents' funeral, which is also the point where Bucky stopped bothering to pay any attention to what any of those assholes were doing, since he was never going to talk to them again - and on top of that, their kids would be around Stark's age, which means their kids would be almost grown, a lot of them. A few of them would be Carter Jr's age. 

So unless someone actually went through Brooklyn making some kinda cull, there's at least a hundred or so people he's directly related to and some of them are probably even living somewhere in this same fucking borough. Fuck, he might've met them already. 

It kinda makes him appreciate the fact that he can guarantee it's not Mercedes or either of her little friends. 

Otherwise, though, it's . . . like knowing humans went to the moon. That there's a space station somewhere up there right now with astronauts on it. Something vague and academic, true and maybe even important somehow, but not really in any way that touches him, other than hoping he never has to deal with it. And definitely hoping that everyone held on to their hurt feelings and outrage at being disowned enough that they didn't decide to rehabilitate him into some kind of fallen family hero. 

He doesn't think so. Nobody ever shows up in the history programs or on the Wiki, there's no foundation or anything, and that's a good sign. But that would be really fucking awkward. 

It's enough work sorting out how to fucking be human to the people who actually have any relevance in his life at all. He's really going to resent it if anyone shows up expecting fuck all just because they happen to share more DNA with him than his neighbours. Given how fucked up his DNA is guaranteed to be at this point, that's even less of a fucking consideration than it might otherwise be. And it never was very much. 

 

7\. 

It's full moon and it snowed a little bit, and since it's one thirty in the morning it's cold enough that it's all sticking. The moonlight and the street lights and the snow and the overcast sky, they all trap and bounce light off everything until all by themselves they're just about bright enough for a normal person to see by, but not quite. 

The kind of light that makes everything alien and strange and like it's part of some other world, other understanding of reality. That you could shatter in a second if you turned on a lamp or the overhead lights, but you don't, because you don't really want to shatter it. 

If you don't shatter it, maybe this can be unreal. 

Bucky thinks that, sitting with his back to the wall in the dining-room, arms wrapped around his knees, staring at the bottom half of the counters, the stupid kitten a loaf up against his side. It's a lie, he knows it's a lie: this is happening (again, like so fucking often) whether he turns the light on or not. He's sitting here, again, by himself, on the floor, close enough to the sliding doors to the balcony that he can feel the chill radiating off the glass, in what would be the dark except for all the light pollution. 

Again. 

Instead of being in bed, asleep, or pretending. 

And he can feel the time tick by, knows he's dragging over nine minutes, clicking towards ten and the magic point where Steve's going to wake up and, like a self-sacrificing idiot, come out here to look for him. Because Steve's just that fucking stubborn. 

Bucky leans his head back against the wall and tries to get his fucking brain to shut the fuck up, knowing that it's probably pointless. 

It's not memories. Not quite. Not. . . whole ideas of memory, whole incidents, anything like that. It's fragments and moments of feeling, image. Words he can hear, things he can smell. Can almost fucking touch. 

That bastard's voice, over and fucking over again, voice and face and the smell that goes with it, who knows fucking what cologne and faint but _there_ , like a drill in his head. Fragments of moments, of feelings, of words - _report_ , that fucking word, so many times, and others - like someone took out a box in his head and threw everything into a mess on the floor. 

Some things in pairs, too. Echoes. Echo on one side of his brain: _Adequate. Maintain performance._ And then on the other: _Unacceptable._

Fragments of fucking speeches about mission and purpose and you, you, you _you_ and _fuck_ he just wants it to stop. 

When Steve does come out of the bedroom it's with a pause to turn up the heat in the hall, and then to pull the curtains closed on the sliding doors, cutting off the chill that bit more. Things Bucky should've done, but didn't. Couldn't. 

Then he comes and sits down beside Bucky on the floor and arguing seems like such a fucking impossible heavy thing to do and Bucky ends up just saying, "Sorry," quietly. 

"Don't need to be," Steve says. "S'it?"

Bucky shakes his head, feels hair scrape between his scalp and the wall and hears the noise through his skull. "Nothing new. Nothing important. Just same fucking shit." 

Then the words come out like falling over, like the second you're so tired or drunk or sick or hurt that you don't notice you're swaying on your feet until that point where the balance tips and you stumble. Not a big stumble, not a lot of words, just - 

"It's so fucking boring," he ends up saying. "Same stupid fucking shit over and over again and it's so _fucking_ boring and I'm still here. It's still this."

Steve doesn't answer in words. Works his arm between Bucky and the wall instead, around his shoulders, and Bucky lets him. Lets Steve pull him over a little, Steve's temple resting against the top of his head. 

The orange kitten complains because it means she has to either be a bit squished or get up and go around the other side of Bucky, and from there she crawls up his left arm and shirt to try to get on his shoulder, butting her head against his neck 

All of this is too fucking ludicrous, too impossible to be real. 

There's the shadows and echoes in his head, hearing, being told what he was, is, what he did, gave, sacrificed, needed to do and it's so late it's early and he's tired and he can just barely scrape up enough to think _no I didn't, fuck you, fuck_ you _I never gave you a God-damned thing you just fucking took it all anyway._

 _Go away. Go to Hell._

Doesn't work; can't even say he believes it, not all the way. Here in the fucking impossible now there's a stupid little cat fussing for attention and Steve's got an arm around his shoulders and wants him here. Gets up in the middle of the night because he can't sleep and Steve refuses to leave him to sit alone. 

There's no way he fucking deserves this, and someone who wasn't made of shit like he is would care more about that. Do something about it. 

Bucky lets go of his knees and lets them fall, half-unfold, as Steve rests his hand cradling the other side of Bucky's head with his fingers carded through Bucky's hair. 

"Come listen to something," Steve says. "You're getting cold."


End file.
